


It Crackles and Shivers Up Your Spine

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:30:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes up in a meadow of burnt grass and splintered trees with the knowledge that she is no longer who she once was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Crackles and Shivers Up Your Spine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rudy_flamthrowa at my awesome ladies meme. Because the girls are awesome and I don't write about them nearly enough.

She wakes up in a meadow of burnt grass and splintered trees with the knowledge that she is no longer who she once was. She remembers claws, remembers the pain and the way the greedy little shadows had pawed around inside her chest, as if they couldn't find what they were looking for. She remembers with a sharp kind of clarity the biting words that had leapt to her tongue, how she'd started to say "Don't bother looking, it's not there," the moment one of the bigger shadows had tugged something pink and shining from her chest. She'd had enough time to be wary, because _that thing_ was not a heart, before everything went black.  
  
She wakes up, charred blades of grass clinging to her hair and bare back and doesn't remember how to speak French. There's a foreign language on the tip of her tongue, foreign and harsh, but when she thinks about it, she knows what those strange words mean.  
  
She thinks it's stupid, because the absence of a heartbeat is jarring and disorienting- it's too _quiet_ in this fucking place, too fucking quiet and she doesn't have a pulse but she's worrying about something like language.  
  
The sky is purple, a shade halfway between violet and maroon. It's dark with twilight, dark with the oncoming darkness, but there isn't a sign of a storm when lightning lights up the clouds- turns it a brighter shade of purple.  
  
She's panicking, just a little bit, but there's something dead in her chest and the emotion doesn't fit quite right, like a suit that hasn't been tailored for her frame. It sits awkwardly in her dead chest and she wants to scream, wants to _feel_ -  
  
The lightning leaps to her palm like a cherished pet, down from the sky and into her hand. She rubs it between her fingers, feels the crackle and the harsh not-texture, the heat of it. It feels a bit like static, the static just before the shock and it feels _right_ -  
  
"Ahh, so we finally got ourselves a chick," says a voice to her right, and the lightning leaps for the sound before she can stop it. She feels the heat of the flames when they come, and for a moment she thinks her lightning might have made contact with some of the grass, started another fire, but when she turns, there's a man in a coat curling fire up his arms.  
  
There's a hood obscuring his face, but if she squints, she can just make green eyes out of the darkness. The flames die out and the man is saying something, shaking the hood loose to reveal a shock of red hair and a wicked grin.  
  
"Lightning," he breathes, and his eyes reflect fire- interest. He's still grinning as he approaches her and she feels a shock of that not-quite-right emotion, a spark of fear and anger that's too little, too strange. A gloved fingertip reaches out, brushes down her cheek, and something flares into being between them. Light lashes out, the crackle of electricity chasing his hand away. His grin broadens, even as he throws up his hands and backs away, shaking his head in a parody of apology. "Quite touchy," he says, glancing away from her at the line of dead trees.  
  
In profile, he's almost pretty. He's got the lips, cheekbones, and hips of a girl. Feminine features, feminine frame, masculine demeanor. She wonders who he is.  
  
"Axel," he says, over his shoulder, too distracted by splintered wood to properly face her. And then, as if he's realized this, he turns, almost sheepish when he mutters, "Got it memorized?" like a line of a script.  
  
She eyes him with distrust as he stoops down, nudging charred bark with the toe of his boot. He glances around, eyes bright and acid green in the dark of this dead forest. "Got quite a range on you," he whistles, low and appreciative, and for the first time she realizes the charred clearing is _because of her_ -  
  
Axel smiles, slow and different than the grin, and it still doesn't fit quite right on his face, too practiced, not _real_ , but it calms her anyway. Just a bit. He laughs a bit and flings his lump of charred wood in among the rest. "I haven't seen damage like this since I woke up," he admits and looks nostalgic, elaborates, "Burned an entire forest down. It was summer, and the leaves were dry, perfect kindling."

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, kicks at the charred grass beneath him. "Most people are lucky. Xigbar woke up in the stratosphere, Demyx in the ocean. Rumor has it that Xaldin woke up in a tornado. I woke up on fire and thought I was burning alive before Xiggy pulled me out and gave me my name."  
  
He grins again, quick and to the point before it fades. "Guess fire likes to search out where it can burn best," he says, and static crackles across her palm.  
  
"Lightning _starts_ fires. It isn't fire, itself," she says, first words she's spoken and she doesn't even know why she's protesting. The words taste wrong, somehow.  
  
Axel laughs and throws her what might be a fond look. "You, Larxene, might just turn out okay," he says, clapping her on the back the way her brother back home had always done to his friends. "My name's not-" she starts, but he waves her off, speaks over her before she can think _what is my name?_  
  
"It's Larxene, now. New body, new gaping hole where your heart used to be, new name."  
  
And somehow that makes sense, so she doesn't question it. Axel's looking at her like he's afraid she might cry, like he's ready to run in the other direction at the first sign of tears. Something is growing cold in her chest, not her heart- but something. She sniffs a little, lets the sobs build just enough that he starts looking wary and then-  
  
He jumps when the lightning snakes around his ankle, and she thinks that it probably burns, but he ends up on his ass anyway so she doesn't care much. She approaches him, stoops down so that she's eye level, and resents him. Just a little, for seeing her this confused, this broken.  
  
She slides up close to his ear, whispers, "I'm not that fragile, darling" with her lips ghosting along skin. He shudders, eyes wide and a little bit off guard, and she smirks down at him- wicked and teasing and malicious.  
  
_Larxene_. The name tingles on her tongue and yes, she thinks she'll learn to like it.


End file.
